No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
How Mobile Devices Could Change the Face of Serious Gaming
Abstract
Zusammenfassung
Der Erfolg von Smartphones und Tablet-PCs hat den Markt der mobile digitalen Spiele nachhaltig beeinflusst, sowohl auf Hardware- als auch auf Softwareebene. Aktuell findet ein Verdrängungsprozess statt, in dessen Rahmen Smartphones andere Geräte für mobiles Spielen vom Markt drängen. Gleichzeitig ermöglichen Smartphones aber auch eine ganz neue Art von digitalen Spielen. In diesem Beitrag betrachten wir die möglichen Implikationen dieser Tatsache auf den Bereich des Serious Gaming.
... The second advantage is the pervasiveness of these games, as many of them can be played wherever and whenever the player pleases, for instance during travel. In this regard, mobile exergames profit from the smartphone characteristics that differentiate such devices from classic gaming devices such as PCs or video game consoles [13]: smartphones are mobile (light and small enough to be carried around in a pocket or hand), available (rarely more than an arms-length away), and sensitive (capable of determining many aspects of the user's contextual situation thanks to a multitude of integrated sensors). Finally, a good amount of people seems to generally prefer the outdoors when it comes to sports, and mobile exergames go well with such activities. ...
Exergames are video games that require the player to be physically active. They can be roughly grouped into two categories, namely indoor exergames that are usually being played in the confines of one’s living room, and mobile exergames, which run on a user’s smartphone and can be played outside. While indoor exergames have been able to establish themselves as a popular type of video game, mobile exergames are still far and few between. An explanation for this phenomenon may lie in the difficulty of designing user interfaces for mobile exergames. This contribution analyzes the user interfaces of various existing mobile exergames and fitness applications, and proposes a methodology for the creation of such games.
ABSTRACT Four approaches to playing MUDs are identified and described. These approaches may arise from the inter-relationship of two dimensions of playing style: action versus interaction, and world-oriented versus player-oriented. An account of the dynamics of player populations is given in terms of these dimensions, with particular attention to how to promote balance or equilibrium. This analysis also offers an explanation for the labelling of MUDs as being either "social" or "gamelike".
Digital games have become a remarkable cultural phenomenon in the last ten years. The casual games sector especially has been growing rapidly in the last few years. However, there is no clear view on what is "casual" in games cultures and the area has not previously been rigorously studied. In the discussions on casual games, "casual" is often taken to refer to the player, the game or the playing style, but other factors such as business models and accessibility are also considered as characteristic of "casual" in games. Views on casual vary and confusion over different meanings can lead to paradoxical readings, which is especially the case when "casual gamer" is taken to mean both "someone who plays casual games" and someone who "plays casually". In this article we will analyse the ongoing discussion by providing clarification of the different meanings of casual and a framework for an overall understanding of casual in the level of expanded game experience.
Mixed Reality (MR) visual displays, a particular subset of Virtual Reality (VR) related technologies, involve the merging of real and virtual worlds somewhere along the 'virtuality continuum' which connects completely real environments to completely virtual ones. Augmented Reality (AR), probably the best known of these, refers to all cases in which the display of an otherwise real environment is augmented by means of virtual (computer graphic) objects. The converse case on the virtuality continuum is therefore Augmented Virtuality (AV). Six classes of hybrid MR display environments are identified. However quite different groupings are possible and this demonstrates the need for an efficient taxonomy, or classification framework, according to which essential differences can be identified. An approximately three-dimensional taxonomy is proposed comprising the following dimensions: extent of world knowledge, reproduction fidelity, and extent of presence metaphor.
The introduction of new technologies in education raises accessibility issues, which can endanger the universal right to education for students with disabilities. Moreover, in education there is a shift to provide more dynamic and interactive content to the students and video games have been proposed to promote the development of new skills. In this paper we discuss the main challenges of introducing accessibility in game educational software and how they are being addressed within the authoring tool for educational games. The goal is to turn into a holistic solution for the development of accessible educational games.
Video games provide extensive player involvement for large numbers of children and adults, and thereby provide a channel for delivering health behavior change experiences and messages in an engaging and entertaining format.
Twenty-seven articles were identified on 25 video games that promoted health-related behavior change through December 2006.
Most of the articles demonstrated positive health-related changes from playing the video games. Variability in what was reported about the games and measures employed precluded systematically relating characteristics of the games to outcomes. Many of these games merged the immersive, attention-maintaining properties of stories and fantasy, the engaging properties of interactivity, and behavior-change technology (e.g., tailored messages, goal setting). Stories in video games allow for modeling, vicarious identifying experiences, and learning a story's "moral," among other change possibilities.
Research is needed on the optimal use of game-based stories, fantasy, interactivity, and behavior change technology in promoting health-related behavior change.
User Experience Innovation is a book about creating novel and engaging user experiences for new products and systems. User experience is what makes devices such as Apple's iPhone and systems such as Amazon.com so successful. iPhone customers don't buy just a phone; they buy into an experience enabled by the device. Similarly, Amazon.com customers enter a world of book reviews, interesting recommendations, instant downloads to their Kindle, and one-click purchasing. Products today are focal points, and it is the experience surrounding the product that matters the most. User Experience Innovation helps you create the right sort of experience around your products in order to be successful in the marketplace. The approach in User Experience Innovation is backed by 18 years of experience from an author holding more than 100 patents relating to user experience. This is a book written by a practitioner for other practitioners. You'll learn 17 specific methods for creating innovation; these methods run the gamut from targeting user needs to relieving pain points, to providing positive surprises, to innovating around paradoxes. Each method is one that the author has used successfully. Taken together, they can help you create truly successful user experience innovations to benefit your company or organization, and to help you grow as an experienced expert and innovator in your own right. Provides 17 proven methods for innovating around user experience Helps you think beyond the product to the sum total of a customer's experience Written by an experienced practitioner holding more than 100 user-experience patents.
Serious Games (SG) place requirements on all members of a development team, from the designers and domain experts to artists and programmers. In order to support the collaborative work required in serious game production, authoring tools can be introduced in the development process. They allow members of the team to work in one common environment and to have one uniform vision of the project, as opposed to a work environment in which each group uses some software tools exclusively and multiple visions of the finished game do exist simultaneously. Presenting a range of examples including the authoring framework StoryTec, the use of authoring tools for the development of SG is explained in this chapter.
In order to promote healthy lifestyles and wellbeing, many public health experts call for innovative and transdisciplinary research approaches. They welcome contributions from a great variety of professions including nutritional and environmental sciences, epidemiology, medicine, geography, sports sciences and urban planning. Meanwhile, designers are investigating the ways in which new layouts for lunch rooms may better inform people about healthier food choices. Architects and urban planners are stressing pedestrian-friendly street networks and buildings to such an extent that they discreetly hide away elevators to encourage people climbing the stairs. With this dissertation, I would like to draw attention to digital health games as a participatory, location sensitive and playful approach to promote healthy behaviours, which so far has been little addressed by urban research.
Health games aim to be entertaining, but also seek to engage players into learning or physical exercise. One of their commercially most successful products to date - Nintendo's Wii Sports series - may be played foremost in peoples' homes. However, health games run increasingly on mobile devices and begin to interact with their topographic, cultural and social context. The iPhone game Monumental for instance invites players to climb iconic monuments such as Eiffel Tower or Empire State Building. At the same time, the game is tracking players' movement through the iPhone's on-board accelerometer. Their designers hope to engage participants by beating personal high scores and by competing with their friends via Facebook or other social networking sites. Several mobile games likewise have explored the potentials of social influence for health promotion. Notably, they have highlighted architectural theory as a major source of inspiration claiming to learn from cities and buildings how to stimulate social interaction and support. With this dissertation, I would like to invite further consideration on how architectural and urban research can contribute to the design and analysis of digital health games. Beyond providing health-related expertise on specific buildings, places and topographies, I will demonstrate how architectural and urban theory reveals a profound source to discuss aspects of user participation, social interaction and can help to create a wider range of gameplay experiences. In turn, I will demonstrate how what I define as urban health games may unfold particular potentials as a design tool that enables users to discuss and indicate health-orientated urban interventions.
I will therefore investigate architectural and urban design theory with a focus on spatial strategies to support health-related behaviour. Seeking to involve users into design processes as much as possible, I will pay particular attention to the theoretical concepts of so-called "organic" architects from the first half of 20th century. The latter have criticised precisely those colleagues, who we may consider as functionalist and indeed health-orientated. Hugo Häring for instance criticised Le Corbusier for imposing idealistic, over-rational and pre-fixed designs onto peoples' daily routines. In contrast, he claimed for users to articulate design briefs and wanted architects to develop open-ended design processes. I will follow the notion of temporary, personally tailored architecture to post-war planners such as Archigram and Yona Friedman. Building upon these concepts, I will demonstrate how today's mobile technologies can contribute to the advantages of making users aware of environmental influences on one's health and wellbeing.
To this end I will investigate how the notion of serious games has developed as a temporary experience that connects mobile technology, body data and different real world locations. Whereas traditional sports have highlighted self-improvement and foremost competitive forms of play, I will show how health games will have to explore a wider range of play activities to appeal to their audience. Investigating game design theory and relating it to relevant urban projects, I will highlight more creative forms of playing digital health games in the city. Understanding urbanity as state of increased social and cultural exchange and reflecting on attempts for re-appropriating urban space through spatial practices, I will illustrate what may render mobile and location sensitive health games as distinctively urban. I will conclude this investigation by presenting three ways of playing health games in the city as collaborative, expressive and reflective. This framework will be based on an analysis of how current examples of health games benefit from and contribute to their social and built environment.
Can computers change what you think and do? Can they motivate you to stop smoking, persuade you to buy insurance, or convince you to join the Army? "Yes, they can," says Dr. B.J. Fogg, director of the Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford University. Fogg has coined the phrase "Captology"(an acronym for computers as persuasive technologies) to capture the domain of research, design, and applications of persuasive computers.In this thought-provoking book, based on nine years of research in captology, Dr. Fogg reveals how Web sites, software applications, and mobile devices can be used to change peoples attitudes and behavior. Technology designers, marketers, researchers, consumers-anyone who wants to leverage or simply understand the persuasive power of interactive technology-will appreciate the compelling insights and illuminating examples found inside. Persuasive technology can be controversial-and it should be. Who will wield this power of digital influence? And to what end? Now is the time to survey the issues and explore the principles of persuasive technology, and B.J. Fogg has written this book to be your guide.
Bits flowing through the wires of a computer network are ordinarily invisible. But a radically new tool shows those bits through motion, sound, and even touch. It communicates both light and heavy network traffic. Its output is so beautifully integrated with human information processing that one does not even need to be looking at it or near it to take advantage of its peripheral clues. It takes no space on your existing computer screen, and in fact does not use or contain a computer at all. It uses no software, only a few dollars in hardware, and can be shared by many people at the same time. It is called the "Dangling String".
Created by artist Natalie Jeremijenko, the "Dangling String" is an 8 foot piece of plastic spaghetti that hangs from a small electric motor mounted in the ceiling. The motor is electrically connected to a nearby Ethernet cable, so that each bit of information that goes past causes a tiny twitch of the motor. A very busy network causes a madly whirling string with a characteristic noise; a quiet network causes only a small twitch every few seconds. Placed in an unused corner of a hallway, the long string is visible and audible from many offices without being obtrusive. It is fun and useful. The Dangling String meets a key challenge in technology design for the next decade: how to create calm technology.
We have struggled for some time to understand the design of calm technology, and our thoughts are still incomplete and perhaps even a bit confused. Nonetheless, we believe that calm technology may be the most important design problem of the twenty-first century, and it is time to begin the dialogue.
In this paper, we describe a set of personalized exergames which combine methods and concepts of serious games, adaptation and personalization, authoring and sensor technologies. Compared to existing systems, the set of games does not only keep track of the user's vital state, but also directly integrates vital parameters into the gameplay and supports the training and motivation for sustainable physical activity in a playful manner.
This paper presents an outdoor/indoor augmented reality first person application ARQuake we have developed. ARQuake is an extension of the desktop game Quake, and as such we are investigating how to convert a desktop first person application into an outdoor/indoor mobile augmented reality application. We present an architecture for a low cost, moderately accurate six degrees of freedom tracking system based on GPS, digital compass, and fiducial vision-based tracking. Usability issues such as monster selection, colour, and input devices are discussed. A second application for AR architectural design visualisation is presented
Mobile Games Architecture -State of the Art of the European Mobile Games Industry
- M Noyons
- D Macqueen
- B Johnstone
- E Robertson
- T Palm
- J.-C Point
Noyons, M., MacQueen, D., Johnstone, B., Robertson, E., Palm, T., & Point, J.-C. (2011). Mobile Games Architecture -State of the Art of the European Mobile Games Industry. Retrieved July 10, 2013, from Mobile Game Arch Project :
www.mobilegamearch.eu
Satoru Iwata, Nintendo CEO: Apple Is The 'Enemy Of The Future
- B Bosker
Bosker, B. (2010, July 7). Satoru Iwata, Nintendo CEO: Apple Is The 'Enemy Of The Future'. Retrieved July 10, 2013, from
The Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/07/satoru-iwata-nintendo-ceo_n_568045.html
GDC '08: Are casual games the future?
- E Boyes
Boyes, E. (2008). GDC '08: Are casual games the future? Retrieved July 10, 2013, from Gamespot:
http://uk.gamespot.com//news/gdc-08-are-casual-games-the-future-6186207?tag=result%3Btitle%3B0
Way Down Deep in the Wild
- S Schiesel
Schiesel, S. (2010, May 16). Way Down Deep in the Wild, Wild West. Retrieved July 10, 2013, from The New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/arts/television/17dead.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Smartphone apps are the new gold rush of the tech world
- J Hiner
Hiner, J. (2009). Smartphone apps are the new gold rush of the tech world. Retrieved July 10, 2013, from TechRepublic:
http://www.techrepublic.com/
Using GPS in Environmental Education Activities: A GPS Treasure Hunt
- B Kinkaid
- S Wiley
- R Mcpeake
- M Daniels
Kinkaid, B., Wiley, S., McPeake, R., & Daniels, M. (2001). Using GPS in Environmental Education Activities: A GPS
Treasure Hunt. Proceedings of the 30th Annual North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE)
Conference. Little Rock, USA.
Choices in Infiltrating a Terrorist Cell
- S Schiesel
Schiesel, S. (2009, November 11). Choices in Infiltrating a Terrorist Cell. Retrieved July 10, 2013, from The New York
Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/arts/television/12call.html
2012 Year in Review ARQuake: An Outdoor/Indoor Augmented Reality First Person Application
- G J Spriensma
- B From Distimo Thomas
- B Close
- J Donoghue
- J Squires
- P D Bondi
- M Morris
- W Piekarski
Spriensma, G. J. (2012). 2012 Year in Review. Retrieved July 10, 2013, from Distimo: http://www.distimo.com/publications
Thomas, B., Close, B., Donoghue, J., Squires, J., Bondi, P. D., Morris, M., & Piekarski, W. (2000). ARQuake: An
Outdoor/Indoor Augmented Reality First Person Application. Proceedings of The Fourth International Symposium
on Wearable Computers. New York, USA: IEEE Press.
Persuasive Games on Mobile Devices
- I Bogost
Bogost, I. (2007). Persuasive Games on Mobile Devices. In B. J. Fogg, & D. Eckles, Mobile Persuasion (pp. 29-38). Palo
Alto, USA: Stanford Captology Media.
Pervasive Games -Experiences on the Boundary Between Life and Play
- M Montola
- J Stenros
- A Waern
Montola, M., Stenros, J., & Waern, A. (2009). Pervasive Games -Experiences on the Boundary Between Life and Play.
Burlington, USA: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.